


Old Blood

by NatMatryoshka



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Armitage Hux Being An Asshole, Badass Rey, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, English gothic setting, F/M, Gothic novel elements, Mention of past abuses, Orphan Rey (Star Wars), Slow Romance, Victorian Gothic AU, a sort of The Shape of Water tribute, also some Frankenstein elements, but with classical gothic elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-10-19 04:34:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20651288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NatMatryoshka/pseuds/NatMatryoshka
Summary: When Rey moves from Jakku to the capital to change her life, she doesn't expect to become Armitage Hux's housemaid, the owner of the old mansion Brendol Hall: an old, eerie place, full of secrets.Some of them involving a tormented creature.





	1. Chapter I

_“Dear Finn,_

_I’m writing you these lines from a train headed to Coruscant. I left Jakku only this morning, and yet it already seems like a hundred years ago! I’ve seen so many trees covered in an almost unreal shade of red and yellow leaves. I’ve seen them before, in a painting on the wall of a house I worked in years ago, but never had the chance to appreciate them in person. I guess autumn has finally arrived, here, in the place where seasons actually change._

_But how have you been? I pray you’re in good health, and hope Madam Holdo doesn’t tire you out too much. Hopefully, tomorrow will be my first day of work here. I still can’t believe they really chose me, but the address on a piece of paper in my pocket and the new masters waiting for my arrival tonight help prove this all to be true._

_Part of me almost felt sorry at the idea of leaving Jakku, but I can’t keep on living in the past, chasing my ghosts. The orphanage was an awful place, you know that far too well. My parents never came back and working there only to sell metal scraps won’t help them remember me in any way. And who knows… maybe this new job will finally turn my life around. I hope so, at least._

_I’m leaving you for now, but maybe I’ll write something more once I get to the city.”_

The girl set her pen down, wiping it with a napkin retrieved from a pocket, then waited for the ink to dry. The train raced through the countryside shaded by the autumnal light, and each mile was a step ahead towards the unknown, far from the city she had lived in for as long as she could remember. If anyone could call a mere urban agglomeration barely regained from a barren land, inhabited solely by desperate people who chose to run away from civilization, a “city”. Jakku was just that: a den of desolation and loneliness, the worst place to grow up… and yet, she had always called it home, at least for fifteen years.

Rey shook her head, shooing those memories away. She couldn’t think of the past. It was a constant thought, repeated like a prayer, and the only motivation that pushed her to send a letter of introduction a few days after reading that newspaper announcement. The owners of an old mansion in the capital city’s suburbs were seeking servants to run the household chores and errands. They offered board and lodging and didn’t ask for references; the only necessary requirement for a candidate was the ability to start a fire and perform any chore assigned. The monthly pay was respectable, but what really lured her was the promise of a fixed salary and a roof over her head: living in a manor house, at least, meant being able to eat every day.

She glanced down at the illustration of the mansion on the newspaper and closed her eyes, leaning her head on the backrest. The letter brushed against her leg, sheltered by the apron pocket she had managed to purchase with the last money earned before leaving Jakku. She had given up on three food portions that would have probably filled her stomach for the day, in order not to show up at her new workplace wearing her old, shabby clothes. The rest of the money was spent to buy the ticket to Coruscant.

No one would have spent a penny for a girl grown up among the wrecks, surely not Unkar Plutt, her last, horrible employer. But what did General Kenobi tell her all the time?

_You have a beautiful soul, Rey. It’s not a common trait. If someone ever judged you only by your looks, instead of your personality, well… I certainly hope they could immediately understand how wrong they are._

She liked General Kenobi and he was warm and caring with her, like a grandfather with his favourite granddaughter. The girl had been his housekeeper for a while, until he went away but not without leaving behind an address for her: _if you ever need me, come find me in old Tatooine,_ he told her. _Memories from the past must stay where they belong… but my door will always be open for you, child._ She kept that crumpled piece of paper in the wooden chest he gave her, an old engraved family keepsake. Rey always kept it by her side, along with the two most precious belongings she had: that very address and the only memory of her parents, a roughly worked azure crystal pendant.

She didn’t carry a lot of luggage, except for that wooden box and one or two different outfits. _In the end,_ she thought to herself, _starting a new life means leaving everything behind._

*

The iron gate was there, in front of her eyes. Rey lifted her gaze towards the mansion, and what she saw left her in awe.

A two-story building, larger than any she had ever seen, stood out amidst the thin fog of that rainy day, at the end of a gravel paved road flanked by trees. From that distance she could only spot two rows of closed windows on the two upper floors, but it was enough to spark her curiosity. She touched the gate almost without realizing it, lost in her thoughts, and was very surprised to find it unlocked. Her new master was probably waiting for her and didn’t want to waste any time, she thought walking down the alley, breathing in the intense scent of wet wood. The rain started to pour down; a thick blanket of metal grey clouds, shaped in the most varied ways, had covered the sky.

Her steps creaked on the wet gravel. Once she reached the entrance door, Rey summoned all her courage and knocked twice on the dark wooden surface, straightening her apron shortly after, out of nervousness. She asked herself what sort of person might be the man, or woman, who had sent their announcement to the newspaper: an elder and wise person like General Kenobi or maybe a creature as sly as Unkar, always ready to exploit her and refuse to pay what was due? The thought of her last meeting with him still made her shiver to the core. He didn’t do more than yank on her arm, but she could still feel his fingers around her, almost as if it had happened just a few hours earlier.

“Good, I see you’ve arrived right on time.”

She was startled, so lost in her thoughts, then blinked her eyes and stared at the owner of that imperious voice: a tall man wearing a black starched suit. He kept his red hair combed backwards and his nose, reddened by the unexpectedly cold air , was sprinkled with freckles.

“Y-yes, I’m the new housemaid. My name is Rey,” she stammered, straightening her back. The man quickly scrutinized her head to toe with a slight expression of disapproval, then he stepped aside to escort her inside, without even waiting for her to close the door behind her back. Shaking subtly, she hastened to his side.

The inside of the house was poorly lit: the windows overlooking the front yard were shielded by heavy dark velvet curtains, almost completely drawn. The only light source, except for the glimmers of grey light seeping through the windows, was a candelabra placed at the entrance. She tried to sharpen her eyesight but could only identify the damask pattern of the wallpaper and the silhouette of the balustrade, made of the same deep brown wood used for the door. There was a rather thick carpet on the floor, but telling its colour was almost impossible.

The red-headed man stopped by the staircase, holding a candlestick retrieved from who knew where. “Welcome to Brendol Hall,” he said. “I am Armitage Hux, owner and heir to this estate. As you must have probably already gathered, the mansion is vast and we cannot handle it as we would like to, so we thought it was time to start hiring new workers.” He gestured vaguely to the space in front of him, then turned around and started walking up the wooden stairs: a silent demand to be followed. Rey followed him, but not before making sure her shoes weren’t wet.

The rooms upstairs were all locked. The owner escorted her down the hall, allowing her to quickly glance at the paintings hanging on the wall: antique prints portraying famous monuments, a thick forest lit only by a pale crescent moon, city views of places she wasn’t familiar with, all of them surrounded by a rather gloomy atmosphere. Down the hall, the biggest frame was well exhibited: a full-length portrait of a severe-looking man, wearing what looked like an army uniform full of medals. For a moment, the girl had the impression his ice blue eyes were observing her.

The house was completely silent, except for the faint sizzle of the candles melting away. Rey tightened her woolen shawl around her shoulders, shivering.

“On the ground floor you’ll find the kitchens, an old guest room that hasn’t been used in years and a sitting parlor, along with the dining room. Up here, instead, the most important rooms are my study and Doctor Snoke’s. Your room is down there, last door on the left before the end of the hall,” Hux explained. “Upstairs we have the attic, but it’s full of junk and unfit for use at least for a few years now, so don’t worry about it.”

Rey nodded. She didn’t know how to answer otherwise; she was still studying him, unsure of what to think. Hux started walking once again towards the stairs, expecting to be followed closely.

“Your duties mainly consist of cleaning and serving: you are to clean the rooms, dust the furniture and wash the floors, pick up the mail, do the laundry, serve meals and tea,” he kept listing by counting on his fingers. His tone was that of someone who always had everything under control. “The other members of the household staff are Mitaka, our coachman who also works the garden, and the cook, Miss Netal. They’re busy now, but I trust you’ll get to know each other this evening, by dinner time.”

They walked down the stairs in silence. The girl turned around and saw her reflection in a mirror nearby: her wet hair was starting to escape the three soft buns she had tied that morning. She was tired, hadn’t eaten in days, and the dark circles under her eyes gave proof of how uncomfortable the makeshift shelters where she had slept after being sent away from the orphanage were. _A very good first impression, no doubt about that_, she thought bitterly to herself.

Hux returned to the same spot as moments before, in the middle of the entryway. The light rain had now turned into a full-fledged downpour that roared loudly on the roof and against the window panes.

“You are to clean every room that’s not locked, our studies as well. The only floor you must never access” – he paused, as if to make sure the girl’s attention was focused entirely on him – “is the basement. There’s nothing of your expertise down there, and I assure you that, if you ever saw that place, you’d never want anything to do with it.” _(Was he smiling?)_ “Every tool you might need to clean the house, you can find in a storage space next to the kitchen, including the work clothes you’ll be wearing from now on. You can start working tomorrow morning. Is everything clear?”

He did not expect a negative answer. Rey nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Hux looked pleased. “Very well. Now, I have other matters to attend to before dinner time. I suggest you use the rest of the day to make yourself at home in your room. You’ll find the key in place inside the lock.” The man dismissed her without adding anything else; he just turned around and disappeared, heading towards the back rooms. Maybe he was about to warn the other servants of her arrival, Rey thought. Or perhaps he needed to check the basement door was locked, to avoid the new girl giving in to temptation and snooping down there.

_You need this job_, she mentally scolded herself. _You can’t ruin everything like that, just because you’re used to doing what you want. _She walked up the stairs, dragging her luggage along, and once she reached her room, she pushed the door and pulled it inside. The furniture consisted of a very plain bed, a wardrobe, and a dressing table that was apparently placed there just to get rid of it, but in the end all of that was more than she expected. Rey placed the old suitcase next to the wardrobe, hung the few clothes she had on the stand and placed the chest on the lowest shelf, where no one could find it. After lighting the candle on the small table, she laid on the bed: out the window the storm had calmed down, but a thin rain kept falling, undaunted. From her position, she could see the garden was many feet wide. The old trees held the water back among the leaves and moved in the wind, resembling a melancholic dance.

_You need this job. You can eat. You can sleep. Any place is better than that junkyard, better than Unkar’s slimy hands. Any place…_

_*_

After dinner, she pulled out the letter from the chest and started writing again.

_“I’ve just finished dining with the rest of the servants, in complete silence. I don’t think Miss Netal, the cook (I believe she’s named Bazine) likes me very much, whereas Mitaka – the gardener – is too quiet for me to really understand what he’s thinking. She served Master Hux his supper and I could just tell from her face how relieved she was to finally delegate that task to me. Mitaka left after dinner, he lives in a working-class district not far from here._

_The mansion is… I don’t even know how to describe it. Huge and eerie, but something in its silence fascinates me, almost as if I can’t help but stay here. My room, instead, reassures me. It’s small and I’m not sure the fireplace was even cleaned in the first place, but after closing my door I immediately felt at peace, at least for a while. I hope things stay this way, and that a better life than the one I led on Jakku awaits me._

_I’ll start working tomorrow. Wish me good luck and be well._

_Rey_

  



	2. Chapter II

With each passing day, Rey got more used to the routine ruling Brendol Hall.

She woke to birds singing, ready to start serving Hux his breakfast. For the rest of the day, she usually cleaned and tidied the house and – whenever Miss Netal asked – she ventured to the nearest neighborhood and purchased what was needed to prepare lunch and dinner. Some rooms were used quite often and didn’t need much attention, while others seemed to have been left abandoned for years, so she was busy starting from her first day of work.

Armitage Hux spent the majority of his time in his second floor study: at lunchtime he would request a meal tray in his room and later Rey would pick it up, then he would keep working until the evening. No one knew precisely on what tasks he focused so entirely, and the servants showed no interest in asking any questions about the matter. Rey ventured to the study a few times, to dust the shelves and wash the windows. That room was decorated with the same austerity belonging to the master of the house: tall and dark furniture with severe lines and a large window facing the pond in the garden.

On the long archive cabinet, a series of elongated jars and glass containers towered, filled with bones and several sorts of animal remains Rey preferred not to investigate. The desk was always covered with papers, travel documents, and pages over pages of reports written in a pompous handwriting. The first time entering the room, she had averted her gaze immediately, trying to put a stop to her curiosity and avoid lifting any of those sheets to take a sneak peek. However, on her second visit to the study, she noticed the papers were still there, left unattended, on display. Hux was probably sure his new servant was indeed capable of reading, but not of truly grasping any complex subject.

Those documents spoke of medicine. Of experiments, cadaver dissections, hypnosis. Words that brought back memories of books from another life, back when she used to leaf through them in the company of General Kenobi. Rey loved reading with all her heart, but she never dared to ask if she could borrow one of those perfectly ordered volumes from that bookshelf: somehow, she thought it necessary to keep a low profile, not to fully expose herself. She was accustomed to not trusting anyone, from a very young age, and her coy and reserved nature helped her muddle through on more than one occasion. However, she couldn’t help but snigger at a recurrent thought: her master could never fathom such a humble-looking girl to possess an education worthy of the best families from the Capital.

Every day, approximately around three in the afternoon, he was visited by a stern looking, tall and extremely thin man, whom everyone referred to as Professor Snoke. Unlike Hux, he always wore bizarre golden suits and addressed the servants with a slimy voice that reminded her of Unkar’s. He usually went straight upstairs and didn’t leave his colleague’s side for hours, at least not until Miss Netal hurried Rey to warn them whenever dinner was ready. Whatever he did after that, though, was a mystery. He probably went back to Hux’s study and then home, she thought, as she usually saw him only the next day, after that.

She had one day off per week and, on those occasions, she loved to explore the mansion’s garden. Behind the house a wide meadow extended, dotted with trees left in Mitaka’s care. They were everywhere: flanking the road she took towards the entrance, scattered in small groups near the garden’s central section, next to the pond surrounded by flat stones, within which some fishes could be spotted swimming. The first time she had walked through that place, she had wondered how an intensively industrialized city like Coruscant could hide so much green and then, breathing the fresh air deeply, she headed to a small stone fountain not far from the front of the house.

A crow was drinking, legs in the water, its black feathers sparkling beneath the lazy autumnal sun. Rey had slowly come closer to the bird out of curiosity, but only managed to make him fly away, cawing, leaving a single feather behind. A tall stone wall separated the mansion from the other manors, and its west side was covered by a hedge of roses, of which the gardener was very fond. They were delicate pinkish white roses, and not even the autumn cold was able to fully wither them. The air smelled of dead leaves, of moss and smoke coming from the chimneys.

She walked for a long time, her thoughts her only company. Behind the house, far from the pond, was a small clearing pointed by small bushes, in the middle of which stood stony shapes she couldn’t distinguish. She had approached to examine them thoroughly, only to discover they were tombstones. “_Here lie the mortal remains of Brendol Hux, devoted husband and servant of the Nation, and of his wife Portia. May they rest in peace, united as they were in life_,” the biggest headstone displayed. The small ones looked much more ancient, with some writings unreadable. The last two in the back were even broken, collapsed on the side, as if they were tired. That area of the garden surely was the most neglected, as the lichens had grown flourishing on the stone and the graves were surrounded by weeds and dead branches. Rey stood there and kept gazing at them for an awfully long time, until a tingle shook her head to toe. Maybe the air was too humid- after all, it was late November – yet not a single other area of the garden could make her feel that lingering and unsettling oppression, almost as if there was something _alive_ beneath that land. Something harboring an ancient despair, ready to emerge without warning.

From that moment on, she always stuck close to the mansion. Her only excursions to the city were limited to grocery shopping and an emporium she discovered that sold pretty much every kind of book. The sole thought of buying one with her first money earned and reading it beside the pond was enough to fill her days with enthusiasm.

She never forgot what Hux had told her regarding the basement. Her younger self would have never hesitated to venture down there, thrilled at the idea of living a forbidden adventure, but the more diligent Rey of the present realized that risking everything just to sneak around was incredibly stupid. Her room was comfortable, and so was the bed, and she was finally eating properly. For the first time in a while, she probably wouldn’t even need to worry about the cold winter weather. Was it worth risking everything for a bunch of junk – the best-case scenario – or for a locked door, at worst? She had dispelled that thought and moved on, even if the basement and its secrets remained at the back of her mind, teasing her.

One afternoon, as soon as she heard Hux’s office door shut, she had sneaked downstairs, tiptoeing. She already had an excuse made up in case they caught her – her pendant slipped from her neck, rolling down the stairs to the basement before she could catch it – but neither Bazine nor Mitaka seemed to be nearby. She descended the steps, heart in her throat, one flight of stairs after the other, until she reached a hall with three locked doors: the first one was blocked by its rusted hinges, the last one was only left ajar, while the middle was probably used much more frequently, since the brass handle seemed rather polished. Her heart kept beating faster and faster. What was that door hiding? Why had Hux suggested she not wander down there, if all he had to hide were three average looking doors?

Someone coughing upstairs startled her, forcing her to a silent retreat before she could even lean an ear on the middle door, searching for any signs of life .

*

The next day, a cry woke her up in the dead of night.

She had fallen asleep only a few minutes earlier, after cleaning the kitchen and answering Finn’s letter. At first, she thought it was only a dream, but after a brief silence, another yell followed, agonizing, violent. Someone was shouting at the top of their lungs, a scream so full of pain it could be heard even two floors upstairs.

Her heart started pounding in her chest, so fast it took her breath away. Head pressed against the mattress, ear sinking into the coarse fabric of the sheet, she prayed for that sound to stop. Jakku’s streets at night teemed with wild dogs, hearing their howls in the middle of the night was not uncommon--but that didn’t sound like an animal’s cry. It was too human, too full of anger. It chilled her down to the bones.

Rey took a deep breath, holding the corner of her blanket tight, with sweaty fingers. The second shout was followed by a sound of steps along the corridor, then a door slammed shut; Hux’s study, Rey had no difficulty recognizing it. The steps grew more and more distant, downstairs, frantically paced, until the sound finally faded. She quickly rose to her feet, stretching her ear to try and guess the source. Her principal, or whoever got up to check the situation, had surely headed straight to the basement, without calling for Miss Netal’s aid, since she was still sleeping in the room located at the other end of the hall. But why all that haste? And, most importantly, whose voice was screaming ?

She reached for the candelabra placed upon the dressing table, trying to keep her hands from shaking. Rey managed to light a candle and waited in the middle of the room, standing still, hoping the situation had returned to normality. Perhaps, nothing truly happened. Maybe she was just imagining things, a vivid dream, and the turmoil from her sudden awakening could have added up on the movements of someone going out for a night stroll. Maybe Miss Netal was thirsty and decided to go downstairs for a glass of water. The best thing she could do was going back to sleep.

And yet…

Standing on her feet, nerves on edge, every small sound seemed to be magnified. The water drops falling rhythmically in the bathroom, the slight creaking of the floorboards under her weight. An unidentified noise came from above, in the abandoned attic, followed by more steps. They belonged to the same person from minutes earlier, who was now going back upstairs, reaching the top step, stopping, then turning left. At a certain point, she could almost swear they had stopped right outside her door.

Anyone else would have abandoned the candelabra to crawl back into bed, but the adrenaline running through her body kept Rey from retreating. She held her breath for as long as she could, still as a statue, until the mysterious presence headed back in the opposite direction, to the study and the other rooms, leaving her free to move. When she heard Hux’s door close shut, she let out a sigh of relief.

The next minute she threw her wool shawl over her white nightgown, then slowly opened the door to go out into the hall. She didn’t know why she was walking down the stairs, barefoot, ear stretched towards Hux’s room: the screams had terrified her, it was true, but her instincts were pushing her to go back to the place of her last investigation, and she trusted her gut too much to question it.

She kept descending slowly, one step at a time, in the darkness. The dim light coming from the candelabra illuminated the dark furniture, painting eerie shadows on the wall. Silent as a little ghost, she walked with the stealthy pace she had mastered during her life in Jakku, careful not to tread on the uneven boards. She took the corridor leading to the kitchens, stopping to listen if someone was following her. An owl screech broke that deafening silence, but Rey was not startled: she didn’t have to fear any animal, at least not that night. Tightening the shawl on her shoulders, Rey kept treading down the basement stairs, holding her breath, praying Hux was not in the mood for a second patrol.

One she got to the three doors, she noticed the central one was left ajar. A small opening the principal probably didn’t notice, busy trying to silence the source of the noise. The scream originated from that place, she was sure of that. She could hear a faint moan, a series of broken whimpers interrupted by short breaths. A deep, hoarse voice. Someone was recovering from physical suffering.

For the umpteenth time that night, Rey held her breath. She wasn’t shivering anymore, but her body was incapable of standing still. A proper housemaid would have forgotten everything and returned upstairs, to her bed, as if she hadn’t heard a single thing, instead of sneaking around in the basement. But what if, among the shadows of that room, something far more dangerous was hiding? If Hux had warned her, maybe he only had the wellbeing of his servants at heart. Yet again, the same instincts that guided her to the point, were encouraging her to open that door. That short breath was waiting for her, drawing her close, almost like a spell. Every fear was suddenly gone, leaving only a relentless curiosity in its wake.

She closed her eyes and opened the door.

The room she faced had high ceilings, much like Hux’s study, but it was at least double in size, despite the two working tables and the massive number of books and instruments scattered here and there. It was dark, windowless just like the rest of the basement, but the candelabra in her hand was not the sole source of light: from the other end of the room came a greenish flicker, an unnatural and opalescent lighting which seemed to permeate the walls. She took another step, ears open. The breath she had heard moments before had grown less intense, but the creature to whom those lungs belonged was hidden somewhere, behind the tables stacked with papers, and it didn’t seem exactly _small_.

It didn’t take long to find out what all that was about.

The stone floor was ice-cold, and soon she couldn’t feel her toes anymore. She proceeded slowly, one step after the other, sweaty hand gripped around the candelabra, until she reached the source of that strange light: an enormous glass container, the tallest and widest she had ever seen, that stood in the darkest corner of the room. The green flicker came from there, a shaky glimmer apparently on the verge of fading out at any moment. Rey stared at it open-mouthed, both fascinated and intimidated, until her foot stepped on something damp: water. The floor was covered in it, mixed to a sticky substance that looked much like gelatin, coming out from a hole in the structure of the glass.

That was the moment she saw him.

The source of those desperate screams was lying not far from her right foot, curled up on the floor in the fetal position, a tangle of pale legs and arms, unnaturally long. At first, she didn’t notice the body, so fascinated was she by that weird glass device, but now it was impossible not to notice his presence, since he started whimpering again. Frozen in place, Rey could only stare at him trying to get up, clumsy and trembling, as if he had been immersed in that fluid for so long, he forgot how to walk.

He was a young man. A black-haired human with the face of a child grown up too fast. He was incredibly tall, and yet his eyes looked terribly young, almost helpless. He was naked, except for a light cloth wrapped around his waist. His arms showed a series of red marks and recent looking wounds.

They exchanged a glance. Just one look in an infinitesimal moment that seemed to last for an eternity. The young man stared at her, still curled up on the ground, too weak to ask for help. Rey was observing him, on alert, even though he didn’t seem interested in hurting her. When he reached out his hand, though, she backed up and fled away.

Rey swiftly ran upstairs, without caring if someone was going to spot her or not, or about the water dampening the edge of her nightgown, threatening to make her slip on the floor. She kept running until she reached the door of her room, the light of all candles now out due to the rush. Once inside, she locked the door and curled up in her bead, breathless, pulling the blanket over her head. The image of that boy kept haunting her through the night, both during the few hours of restless sleep and in wakefulness.

Being more careful would have prevented her from stepping on the floor with wet feet, not to leave any trace. Later, Hux was surely going to notice those stains on the red carpet covering the steps and would have started keeping an eye on her. In that moment, though, being discreet was the last of her thoughts. 


	3. Chapter III

During the following days, Rey couldn’t stop thinking about that encounter.

She kept recalling it while polishing the silverware in the living room, while washing and hanging the laundry, even while walking up the stairs, tray in hand, heading towards Hux’s study. The thought of that boy kept going through her head over and over: his eyes filled with pain but still fierce, the arms covered with scars, that scream tearing the stillness of the night. Who was he, and why was he there? Did he break that glass device? Was he truly human? Confused questions without answer, but which she couldn’t just let go. If Miss Netal looked impassive as always and Mitaka kept working without talking to anyone, it could mean they knew but avoided saying anything, or perhaps they were just oblivious to everything. In any case, she would have never opened up to them regarding that matter.

The morning after, come time of knocking on Hux’s office door for breakfast, she found him standing, leaning against the big window facing the garden. He was reading and, when he turned to approach the desk, Rey couldn’t help but notice he had a slight limp. They must have fought, he and the mysterious boy: Hux was probably the cause of the injuries he had on his arms. There were also those enigmatic papers on his desk, and people kept coming and going in a weird way; Doctor Snoke was joined by a very tall, blonde and cold looking woman, who always wore a hat with a small dark veil she never took off, not even after leaving her coat downstairs. Rey’s mind started analyzing the various hypotheses, for so long she didn’t even remember laying the tray on the desk and standing there still, staring blankly ahead. Hux called her back to reality with a well-planted cough, after which she bowed hastily and ran away, scolding herself for that latest distraction.

Nevertheless, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Whenever she closed her eyes, she could see that boy’s face, hair falling on his cheek like dark seaweed. Rey might not have known anything about him, but something was certain: they shared the same loneliness. A small part of her, the most stubborn and willing to help whoever she met, urged her not to forget him.

*

The rain was pouring down: heavy drops tapped on the windows, falling in hurried streaks, dispersing beyond the wooden frame. Every now and then, lightning tore through the sky, followed by the rumble of distant thunder. In the silence of the night, the pendulum clock downstairs struck midnight with its usual grave toll.

Rey got out of bed, put on her usual woolen shawl, took a pair of socks with her and closed the door behind her back, careful not to make any sound. She walked the landing slowly, ears open for the slightest sound, but the whole house seemed to be asleep. Stepping in front of Hux’s study, she held her breath in fear of being caught, hoping with all her heart the master was sleeping. That evening, he had stayed far longer than usual: at a certain point, Miss Netal started grumbling as neither he nor Doctor Snoke seemed to have any intention of coming down for supper, in contrast to what they had previously announced, but things had quickly gone back to normal, and he retired to his room at the usual time. She already had an excuse, in case he found her downstairs, but she wished she wouldn’t need to use it.

Rey crouched down to wear her socks, before going down the stairs: they were thick and heavy and would have helped her muffle the sound of her steps, especially on the creaking steps leading to the basement. Brendol Hall was still silent, except for the monotonous pendulum clock ticking, and those low and mysterious sounds typical of an old mansion. Once she reached the first floor, she wandered nervously through the hall, trying not to let her gaze linger on anything in particular. That oppressive atmosphere reminded her of the old house in Jakku’s abandoned neighborhood, in ruins and said to be haunted. 

That rumor always teased the imagination of every kid from the orphanage. Back then, she had touched the door on a dare and was truly scared. This time, though, there was no place for fear; instead, she only felt determination. Her instincts started pushing her forward again just like a few nights before, telling her the boy in the basement was not going to hurt her in any way. He had the chance to but, instead, chose to reach out to her with his finger, looking at her. There was no viciousness in his eyes, only misery.

Rey tightened the shawl around her shoulders and walked slowly down the basement stairs, one step at a time. Still no one in sight. She breathed in slowly and pushed the door, careful not to make it creak. The same greenish and opalescent light of the last time welcomed her, but this time there was no water to soak the floor’s cold stones. A chair was tossed to the side, a bunch of papers scattered chaotically at her feet, as if someone had thrown them. Rey pushed them aside, trying not to step on anything: she couldn’t leave any trace. She lifted the candlestick to illuminate the area around her, while walking across the room. When the shaking candle illuminated the glass cylinder, the girl was shaken by a tremor so strong it nearly made her fall.

The man was there, sitting on the ground, watching her.

This time he was wearing proper clothes, a white shirt of coarse fabric and a pair of dark trousers, but he was barefoot. He just sat there calmly, almost expecting her: he didn’t bat an eye at her entrance, nor did he seem intentioned to push her away. Rey stood still, waiting for any gesture to make her understand whether she could trust him or not. The light coming from the candlestick flickered, exaggerating their silhouettes on the wall.

Words were failing her, she could feel it. She didn’t know what to say, how to break the spell binding her; she could only watch him in silence. His hair was no longer wet anfell on his forehead in soft and full locks. His shirt, slightly open on the neck, showed a reddish rough-edged scar, similar to the cuts she had already seen on his arms. He was thirty at most, yet something in his eyes made him ageless, as if he were terribly old and incredibly young at the same time.

She was about to speak, when he preceded her.

“Don’t be afraid, I feel it too.”

“W-what?”

His voice was deep, slightly hoarse, as if he didn’t speak very often. It reminded her of a musical instrument left in an old wardrobe for years. She noticed the stuttering in her answer, but it seemed he didn’t.

“What you’re feeling. You feel alone, and you came down here to look for me because you think I am as well. You’ve been abandoned, still thinking about the ones you left behind. I can understand you.”

“How do you know this?” How could a person she had never seen before, read into her heart better than Finn, even better than General Kenobi? “We’d never met before the other night. How can you know my story?”

He didn’t answer but kept looking into her eyes. Without realizing it, Rey had come closer and closer, until she was within easy reach from him, until she could feel his breath on her skin, the only source of warmth in that frozen room. He reached his hand out to her, almost touching her forehead: his fingers were long, pale and slender.

Against her better judgement, she felt the urge to stay there.

Rey closed her eyes. What else was she to do? She let him touch her, with a gentleness unexpected from a creature like him. His fingertips were kind, searching her skin, turning her into an open book, her story on display.

“At night you dream, things you wish were real when you wake up. You don’t belong in Jakku, and what is Tatooine? You’re like me, but you’re no monster…”

He stopped for a minute, maybe pondering to add something else, when a noise from upstairs startled them both, shattering that suspended atmosphere. Rey widened her eyes and rose to her feet in the blink of an eye, grabbing the candlestick once more. No sound of footsteps or slamming doors, but whoever woke up could have reached the basement in a heartbeat, at any moment. She looked one last time at the strange young man while hurrying away, headed towards the safety of her room and, to her great surprise, he reciprocated that glance and nodded.

_You’ll come back_, he seemed to be telling her, and Rey knew he was right.

*

Night after night, she got used to the cold floor and to the darkness surrounding the house. 

Getting out of bed, throwing on the shawl and sneaking to the unusual person downstairs had become instinctive actions she almost did automatically.

That night as well, she had returned to him. However, unlike the other times, she sat next to him, after laying the candlestick on a working table. He did not object.

“You’re still afraid.”

“I’m not afraid!” The outrage in her voice made him smile. Getting used to his way of speaking and to his expressions was not easy; it was like he knew her better than she knew herself.

“Then why are you clenching your arms on your chest like that, if not to shield yourself?”

Rey couldn’t tell him she had done did that since she was a child, because the world had never been particularly kind to her, but he probably already knew that. He was weird, that boy: she couldn’t really put aside the impression that his blood was centuries old. Where did he come from?

“And what about you? Why do you hide your face with your hair?”

He turned in her direction and smiled. It was incredible how he could shift from a frown to a more relaxed expression, almost gentle, in such a short time. When he smiled, he looked like a different person.

“I’m a monster, don’t you remember? I must live hidden away. There’s a reason I don’t live in the sunlight like you do.”

Rey’s lips tightened; she never really got a straightforward answer from him, only enigmatic responses. Silence fell upon them, only filled by a low dripping sound. The walls were damp, a wetness that chilled to the bones. The night was clear, full of stars.

“I’m Rey,” she whispered abruptly, breaking that quietness. She didn’t know why she felt the need to introduce herself in that exact moment, but it felt like the right one. “Just Rey. I’m no one,” she added shortly after, almost in an attempt to apologize for not having a last name to prove her belonging to a family. He shook his head, moving the soft curls aside. She wanted to touch them, but wasn’t sure he would have appreciated that gesture.

“If you’re here, it means you’ve made a choice. You might be no one to everyone else, but not to me.”

That was the closest thing to a compliment he ever gave her during their encounters and Rey tightened the edges of the shawl between her cold hands, in response. Her cheeks were burning with embarrassment. She could feel his body next to her, and a quick thought crossed her mind: a connection was forming between them. Maybe it had just been born and those meetings had done nothing but strengthen it, or maybe it had always existed, impossible to explain. Otherwise, why would she have ventured down there, seeking him without any fear, guided by an instinct stronger than anything, reassuring her that she was making the right choice?

“I’m Ben,” he added a second after, holding out his hand. Rey rested her fingers against his, surprised to find them so soft and warm, as if the humidity of that room had no effect on him.

She learned to understand his emotions by simply touching his skin, eyes closed, afraid any sound could expose them; during those moments, it was as if the world around them disappeared, leaving them alone. She could feel an aura of sadness around him, which terribly reminded her of her youngerolder self, when she still believed her life would start and end in Jakku, before General Kenobi taught her what hope was; but there was also a deep anger, a feeling struggling to violently surpass the others, along with a vulnerability buried deep within his heart, hidden to keep not to let anyone from takinge it away from him.

When they’d separate, a little bit of his warmth stayed with her.

*

“Do not prepare lunch for me today, Miss Netal. I’ll be out until this evening; Count Dooku awaits me. I’ll see you upon my return.”

Rey was sweeping the stairs, when she saw Hux putting his coat on and go outside, in mid November’s cold air. It wasn’t the first time her master went out in the morning, heading who knew where, but he generally made it back in time for lunch and for his usual afternoon visits. Count Dooku was never one of those strange people coming and going, but Rey had already heard of him: he was a member of Serenno’s gentry, a city on the coast, and his name always stood out in the newspaper articles dedicated to gala events. He was said to be a wealthy and powerful man, but also a science enthusiast. Exactly the kind of person Armitage Hux’s colleagues seemed to gravitate towards.

That morning the wind blew strongly, the draughts howled, and the blinds kept slamming against the windows. Mitaka went gathering the dead leaves blocking the entrance path, and brought his hat along, muttering under his breath about how he couldn’t stand autumn in Coruscant. That was the perfect weather to stay inside, reading something while the temperatures plummeted more with each passing day. If only…

Rey lifted her head, immediately realizing the opportunity she was given. A moment later, she was already upstairs, armed with mops and cloths, willing to fully use the time granted her by fate: she had a whole day to try and find out what Hux was planning, without getting caught. The driver was busy outside and Bazine was surely enjoying her free morning, so she could have easily checked the papers in the study without arousing any suspicion. If the master didn’t carry his most important effects with him, she thought.

The office was tidy as always, probably even more compared to the last time she had cleaned it. Rey stepped inside, careful not to bump into something, and headed immediately to the big cabinet surmounted by glass containers, which looked like it could host a great deal of papers. Her search through the first drawers, though, was unsuccessful: there were only boxes full of weird objects, tickets and newspaper clippings. A picture showed the stern looking soldier whose portrait towered over the hall, next to a well-dressed woman wearing an elegant hat; they were Hux’s parents, Rey thought, putting the photo back where it was. In another drawer she could only find leather and woolen gloves, along with a stained work coat. She closed it back and stopped thinking for a moment, letting her gaze linger on the glass jars she had dusted so many times. Inside the first one grandstanded something that looked like human hands, small but well formed, of a scary ashen color. 

When she started working in the mansion, she scolded herself for those morbid flights of fantasy but now, after knowing Ben, nothing seemed too surreal to be true. She hardly averted her stare and headed to the bookshelf, in the farthest corner of the room: there, she might have had better luck.

Rey found medical books, great tomes with handwritten essays on the human body. Where was she to start looking? In truth, she didn’t have the slightest idea what her goal was. Hux’s desk had been cleared out and many of the strange papers she had seen before weren’t there anymore: the girl couldn’t say whether the man had gotten rid of them or taken everything with him. She tried to take a look on the shelves, gently poking around in search of possible annotations tucked among the books or sheets she might have accidentally avoided but found nothing except dust. She sighed, discouraged: how could she even think the master was so naïve to always leave his most festering secrets in plain sight?

Just when she was about to leave the room out of resignation, Rey bumped her elbow into a volume and a notebook fell from the shelf. Its leather cover was worn out around the edges, the pages were filled with annotations and loose sheets fell on the floor. Rey kneeled and opened the notebook delicately on one of the middle pages, careful not to wrinkle it. Luckily, she was still wearing her cleaning gloves.

_The experiment is proceeding. The subject seems to be accepting the grafts with no sign of rejection, at least far better than the last one. With any luck, in a few weeks it will be ready for the next step of the project: mental conditioning. Snoke is certain this second generation of test subjects is much stronger than the first one, and I really hope so, our funding won’t last forever._

Some pages were crossed out with neat ink marks, almost furious. Rey could read FAILED EXPERIMENT repeated more than once, followed by a series of garbled sketches depicting crosses and round symbols she had no clue about. Captions such as “funding cut off”, “all for nothing” and arrows filled the remaining sheets, up to where Hux had probably ripped a group of pages out, judging by the state of the spine. The normal handwriting continued short after, every ink stain now vanished.

_Snoke brought a new subject with him, very promising. He’s been working with it for years and decided we will continue our studies on it together, so that it may become the symbol of our success. The creature is strong, and it won’t bend easily, but Dooku has seen it and assured us his full support. He needs new obedient war machines and we have every intention of fulfilling our part of the deal. We will not fail again!_

_The Knights of Ren project has officially begun._

_First graft performed successfully. The subject appears to be forgetting details from its past life._

Another blank space. How long had passed since Ben fell into their hands? Rey tried to think, pressing a finger on her sweaty forehead. The notebook showed no date, and leafing frantically through the pages was useless.

On the next page the writing began to look more confused, as if the author of the diary was trying to note down the greatest possible number of information, at dizzying speed.

_NO! It’s impossible, this cannot go wrong again! We were so close, so close… the implants are working, but something in his mental conditioning was unsuccessful. Kylo Ren seems to be remembering what he had previously forgotten and started rebelling once more, as he already did. Dooku has shown patience for far too long, soon he will demand tangible results. Snoke is nothing more than an incompetent… what was the point of his “work on the project”, if the creature doesn’t even obey the simplest orders?_

_We cannot fail again. Not after all we went through. Not now!_

The strange signs from the other sheets spread across the page. Rey picked up one of the sheets from the ground and her heart sank at the sight of a list of names accompanied by two dates that implied no more than twenty years’ time gap. Some were followed by a small cross. Her heart started beating faster against her ribcage, while her palms were full of sweat. She kept reading, and the next line in Hux’s diary left her so dizzy she had to lay a hand against the bookshelf to keep herself from collapsing to the floor.

_I must keep an eye on the housemaid. She might have discovered something she should not know._

  



	4. Chapter IV

_“Everything’s good here. Write soon, I’ll wait to hear from you.”_

After her discovery in the study, Rey had tried to keep her daily routine intact for as much as she could, not to raise further suspicion: she woke up, did her job, went out, dropped her letter for Finn off once a week, served meals, went to sleep. She never addressed Hux directly, waiting for him to ask questions instead, and most of all avoided being caught where she shouldn’t have been-- except at night. Her visits to Ben continued and, no matter how much she was perfectly aware they could have cost her job and maybe even worse, she felt like that was the right thing to do.

From what she had grasped reading the diary, he was victim to a plan much bigger than him, something in which Hux was just one of the many participants: they intended to create obedient human weapons, not even minding to hide their work, or her master would never have hired any servant otherwise. Count Dooku was providing them money and protection, Snoke was in charge of “recruiting” test subjects, and the blonde woman she had seen before was probably involved in the project as well. Rey had no idea what the calculations she found meant, and neither those weird formulae, but one thing was certain: Hux was not going to stop at anything. He might have failed more than once in the past, but his determination had come out unbroken, and went hand in hand with his ambition.

Whenever she went downstairs, Rey was extremely careful: she crawled out of bed, wore her socks before exiting the door, walked downstairs without even lighting her way with a candle. She had learnt the layout of the mansion by heart and was able to make her way to the basement without bumping into any obstacles. Once she got to the door, she usually pulled a hairpin out of her hair and used it to pick the lock. The doors were ancient; it didn’t take too long to trigger the mechanism so she could get in. Hux locked it every day but had no clue about her past as a junk dealer, when she used to fend for herself even in the hardest situations.

“Let’s go out,” Ben said one night, without adding anything else. The rain had poured for days, but wind had finally warded off the clouds, the first clear night in ages. December was nearing; it was foreseeable from the leafless trees and the pungent winter scent saturating every new morning.

“Let’s go out.” He had repeated twice, and among any sensible answer she could have said – _they’re going to find us, we can’t be that obvious, it’s too dangerous _– Rey chose to simply nod. She couldn’t say no to him. Ben’s eyes were limpid, filled with the sparkling glint of the stars. Rey had never seen him so… _happy_? She tightened her shawl around her and followed him as he walked across the room on unsteady feet to reach the third door in the basement, then took a narrow tunnel that seemed to have been excavated directly in the rocks and which led outwards. The grass was frozen under their feet, and almost creaked beneath her socks.

“That door is always open,” he explained, once they arrived behind the house. The garden stretched in front of them in all its night beauty, shrouded by a thin cold fog. Before them, in the distance, stood the crows’ fountain and, even further, the gravelly entrance path with its trees, but Ben avoided heading that direction: skirting the mansion without exposing both of them by facing the windows, he led Rey to the pond, in the most remote area of the park. “They use it to go outside without being seen by the servants, in case they need to hide anything incriminating. Since I’ve been kept here, it hasn’t been locked even once.”

They weren’t too far from the gravestones. Rey observed them, drenched in the silver moonlight, but this time she wasn’t scared: they were just sad, she thought, miserable proof of someone who was gone. The small shrubs around the pond wavered in the cold night breeze, a private dance they had come to witness only by chance. Ben suddenly took her hand so she could pick up the pace, and Rey followed him running, wet grass caressing her bare ankles and shadows swallowing them, hiding the two from the world’s line of sight. They could have been mistaken for two ghosts, she thought to herself smiling: the girl all dressed in white and the boy, tall and imposing, wearing only a shirt and his usual black trousers. He was wearing a pair of shoes too, but from the way he kept wiggling his feet, she could guess how much he wasn’t used to them.

They stopped shortly thereafter, next to one of the trees by the edge of the clearing. Ben sat down and stretched his legs; Rey did the same. Far from the mansion, surrounded by the calmness of the night, she felt she could breathe more easily. It was cold and dark, and the risk Hux could find them was real, but Ben’s presence could somehow give her strength. He seemed lost in his thoughts, eyes wandering from the gravestones to the pond, to the wall, in the distance, fencing Brendol Hall off.

“You weren’t always like this,” Rey attempted with a spark of boldness, immediately regretting that statement. Ben, though, didn’t seem offended: he nodded slowly, turning to face her. Maybe he was glad she could realize that.

“No, I wasn’t. My name was Ben… it still is, even if they tried to take it away from me. Kylo Ren, they call me. At first, I obeyed their orders as if my life depended on them, but that’s not the case anymore. There’s something else, there must be something else.”

The trees rustled faintly, producing that peculiar music she was so fascinated with. One day, the man who ran the orphanage had decided to take the children on a day trip to a town named Takodana: a wild and wonderful place, home to a lush forest. She could never forget the wind on her skin, and all those beautiful green giants, limbs lifted, singing their songs to the sky. 

While her companions ran around cackling, she had sat down and listened, eyes half-closed and heart filled with joy. Returning to Jakku’s desolation after that trip had proven to be incredibly difficult.

“Did you have a family?” she asked, breaking the silence yet again.

“I don’t remember much from my past. Only a woman. Dark hair, face marked by the events. ‘Princess Leia’, they used to call her. And a man, always far away. ‘You can’t keep ignoring your son,’ I heard the woman scream at him, but it might be just an implanted memory.” Ben’s voice, always so deep and sure, had cracked slightly. “I don’t know where Ben starts and Kylo Ren ends anymore.”

Rey turned to look him in the eyes and placed her palm on his face, a shaky gesture and yet so implicitly sure. “You are Ben. Kylo Ren is just the creature they are trying to shape, but you’re stronger than them. I know that.”

He smiled. Rey’s fingers covered part of his lips; the rest of his face painted by moonlight. “I wish I had your optimism. The truth is we’re all monsters, Rey… me and the others, the Knights of Ren. They have torn every affection away from us, everything that made us human. They cut us into pieces… grafted skin, organs, arts not belonging to us, all of this to turn us into their perfect machines. They’re monsters too, our creators. But they walk around smugly, proud of giving their contribute to their homeland’s greatness, while I live hidden away, and many others have died. You’ll find them over there, under those stones.”

He pointed at the tombstones. There was the explanation for the small crosses next to their names, Rey thought. She wondered who those young people buried there could be, where they came from. Her heart broke just at the thought.

“Hux and Snoke had a choice,” Rey whispered. “You didn’t. That’s the difference. What they forced you to do doesn’t make you a monster, Ben.” And after all, wasn’t it always like that? People were defined by their choices, not by their origins. Unkar Plutt and her parents had the chance to do some good but chose otherwise. She and Ben had made a choice as well, changing their lives. For the better.

Ben let out a long sigh. “Sometimes a scattered fragment from my childhood comes back to me. A house in the mountains, people smiling, but the screams come right after, and the blood too. Snoke’s performing surgeries, Hux observing. My companions, what we did, what we still must do. ‘You’re our perfect weapon,’ is what they keep repeating. And knowing I caused so much pain, knowing their creature obeyed them…” he took his head in his hands, shaking it slowly. He looked so much like a scared child, fingers buried in the dark waves of his hair and eyes closed. Rey couldn’t stop herself anymore: she threw her arms around his neck and held him in a clumsy embrace, that slowly grew sweeter and more desperate, until she could feel him relax in her arms. The breeze had stopped blowing and leaves were perfectly still, as if time had stopped for them too.

His breath became so regular that, for a moment, Rey thought he was asleep. She was so close to his face she could feel his scent; she couldn’t say exactly what it reminded her of, but it felt like home. Despite the cold air around them, his skin was warm and soft, black curls caressing her forehead, trapping a trace of the same warmth he kept sharing with her, night after night. His beauty was that of a flower waiting for spring to bloom, hidden between a stone crack.

When he lifted his head, she placed her lips on his cheek, eyes closed, and kissed him.

Ben held his breath, and the way he looked at her a moment after was filled with all the words left unspoken.

The night was still, and the water in the pond had turned silver.

During the following days, Rey realized she couldn’t remember much of what happened after; she only reminisced resting her head on Ben’s shoulder, sitting still on the cold ground, lulled by the music coming from the trees, until her eyes became too tired and she finally gave in to sleep. But how did she come back to her room, then? Not on her two feet, since she could recall seeing the garden move around her, her body lying still in a cloud of numbness, two strong arms supporting her. They moved slowly through the shadows, without a sound, as if they were born to do that.

Then she had found herself in her bed and, when she rose to sit, still sleepy, Ben’s figure had disappeared beyond the door. Did it really happen or was it just a dream? She couldn’t say for sure: sleep had taken over her again, confusing shapes and colors in a blurred painting.

*

“I carry scattered memories from my past with me, as well. Voices, caresses. But my parents left me when I was just a child, and never came back.”

He nodded. “Sometimes I hear voices too. _Ben, Ben,_ they whisper my name. I remembered it thanks to them. Somehow, I think they wanted to save me.”

His white shirt was open on his chest: pale skin embroidered with a tangle of faded scars around the widest one. _It looks recent_, the girl thought. On his right shoulder she could see the signs of a stitching, dark sutures biting his skin and holding it firmly, as if it could have slipped away.

Rey pressed the palm of her hand on his chest, above the heart, and realized Ben had never exposed himself so much, not before that moment at least: he was offering her his most fragile side without any hesitation, sure she was never going to reject him.

Something inside her cracked. She felt her lips quiver, words surfacing vehemently, and she could do anything but let them flow, share them with the man, just as he was entrusting her with his past.

“As a child, I was always alone. Back then I didn’t really think about it, that was my normality: children from the orphanage usually stick together in small groups to be less scared of the dark, but at the end of the day, the only thing that keeps you company is loneliness. Even if you have friends, once the doors are open, everyone lives only for themselves.” 

Rey thought of Finn, of how cheerful he was, extroverted: he surely was never going to feel alone. She envied him a bit. 

“I got so used to living for myself I started considering it as something good… less worries, less suffering. You can’t hurt over something you no longer possess, can you? Night after night, I only dreamt of leaving Jakku and starting a new life. Until General Kenobi came, and taught me what home felt like. He made me realize I deserved to be treated with kindness just as everybody else, and that he would have always welcomed me with the same benevolence, wherever he fared. Then he left, but not without giving me an address. He reached out a hand towards me, and it was much more than I could have hoped for.”

Ben didn’t answer, but from the look in his eyes, the girl could tell he was listening. She couldn’t tell whether it was due to a trick of light or not, but she swore she could see drops on his lashes. Tears.

“I didn’t ask much. Just for people not to forget me. That they didn’t decide to leave me behind out of nowhere, because at that point I would have realized my existence had no place in their lives.” She let out a sigh and swallowed down, trying to hold back tears: she felt pathetic, but couldn’t let sadness preventing her from explaining everything. “But they left anyway. Every time I got used to the idea of not being alone anymore, all it took was for me to look away and they were already gone. So, I started counting only on myself, living as if nothing happened, trying to forget what we went through together.” _Until I met you_, she wanted to add, but couldn’t find the courage. “In the end, ‘home’ was only me. It was only just me and myself.”

Rey had never moved her hand from Ben’s chest. The heaviness on her heart was still there, but somehow, now she could breathe more easily. If nothing else, she didn’t feel crushed by the thought that no one could comprehend her pain anymore.

The next things she said slipped from her lips before she could have any second thought.

“Let’s leave this place, Ben. Let’s run away.”

He smiled sadly, moving a lock of hair stranded from the three buns.

“No, Rey. There’s no place out there for someone like me. I wouldn’t know where to go, or what to do. But you deserve a better life than this. You deserve happiness.”

“You do too!” She wasn’t the sort of person who gave up that easily. When someone was wronged, even when Plutt threatened to beat her if she wouldn’t shut up, she couldn’t just keep quiet. _Hold your tongue, girl_. And she always had the final say, because remaining silent meant surrendering too easily. Ben stood before her, he was like her, and Rey wasn’t going to leave him there alone, to destroy himself. “Do you really think you deserve to stay here? What crime did you commit except-”

“Rey” he whispered, and his voice sounded so similar to a prayer, it immediately nipped that river of words in the bud. “Listen to me. You’re good, I can see it in your eyes. From the moment you stepped into this room, you have brought to my existence something I had never felt before. You’re brave, kind… you saw beyond the appearances, you can even see some good in me.” He smiled sadly. “This is why you should leave. Run while you can, while Hux is engrossed with me, and leave Coruscant behind. Risking everything for me is more trouble than it’s worth. You gave me so much more than I could ever hope for. Now it’s only fair for me to do something for you.”

When he put his lips on hers, to return the kiss she gave him before, Rey couldn’t hold her tears back. They kept flowing on her cheeks and falling to the ground, clouding her gaze and confusing her thoughts, while Ben cupped her face with his hands, ever so warm and soft despite all the wounds. He could have killed on Hux’s command, as the signs he carried on his skin showed, but Ben wasn’t going to hurt her willingly.

Tears kept falling even while she reciprocated the kiss, as Rey tried to convey her feelings for him, the reason why she wanted to take him away from that place. She cried standing on her feet, returning to her room as she did after each of their encounters, digging frantically through her thoughts in search of words to help her convince him to change his mind.

Rey had no intention of leaving everything behind.

Not when she had finally found her home.

*

The screams woke her up again, a few nights after. They were not distressed but angry, violent, the roar of a cornered animal, struggling to rebel with all its strength.

_Ben._

There was no time for fear: Rey jumped down from her bed and ran to the door, muscles tense. Something told her it was best to stay where she was, so she opened the door ever so slightly, holding her breath for fear of being heard. The hall, usually dark and quiet, was lit by a dim light she couldn’t find the source of: it danced on the wall, suspended in mid-air, above her head. An intense smell, sweet and disgusting, immediately filled her nostrils; she needed no further investigation to understand that, outside her door, stood Snoke himself.

The man was patrolling the hall but didn’t seem to have noticed her presence. Rey closed the door anyway. Hux had probably asked him for assistance to be sure no one interrupted whatever activity with which he was busy … something concerning Ben, that much was clear. Oh, how she wanted to hurl the door down and run for the basement! However, if she could somehow knock the Doctor down, she knew far too well she had no chance against the master, who was probably armed and determined to fulfill his task. She clenched her fists. One thing she hated, was feeling helpless in that kind of situation.

A loud crashing sound echoed from downstairs, as if something heavy had been just smashed to the ground. Snoke’s shuffling footsteps travelled down the hall and then the stairs, one step at a time, until the sound faded in the distance. Rey leaned her ear against the door.

Silence. The yells had stopped but, sharpening her hearing, she seemed to recognize voices confabulating, too distant for her to really understand what they were talking about. Her heart started hammering in her chest, so loud she truly feared it could burst any moment.

Then, another crash. She closed her eyes and clenched her fists once again, her nails pressing into the skin. A series of images invaded her mind: Ben pushing his persecutors away with blind rage, as fiery as his gaze. Snoke on the ground, Hux trying to block him, the boy’s pale arms tense, veins like embossed narrow blue alleys, trying to keep the master away with all his efforts. Snoke getting back on his feet and hitting Ben with something, perhaps a syringe full of liquid or a sharp object. The two men grasping at him again, trying to knock him down for the count, Ben growing tired of fighting as if, deep down, he really thought he was Kylo Ren. _I’m a monster. There’s no place out there for someone like me._

When silence shrouded the mansion once again, Rey held her breath, trying to resist the compelling urge to run towards the basement. She climbed into her bed, Ben’s screams still in her ears, and cradled herself for a long time, wrapping her shoulders with her arms, as she did in Jakku whenever she couldn’t sleep. She breathed in, then out. Rey touched her lips gently, trying to recall the feelings Ben’s kiss had awakened, to draw strength from that very instant. 

Whatever was going to happen, the girl promised herself, she was going to take him away with her. 

  



	5. Chapter V

The road was dry; it had not rained for several days. Rey thanked whichever supernatural entity was protecting them: hiding their tracks on the muddy ground would have been impossible. Ben plodded along behind her, left hand held firmly into hers, right one pressed against his side. The cut had stopped bleeding, but the wound was still fresh, and taking care of it as soon as possible was mandatory.

_Soon_, she thought, stopping only for a moment to let him catch his breath. The station was still far. They needed to take advantage of every hundredth of a second to distance themselves as much as possible from Brendol Hall and from Hux, who was soon going to look for them. Ben tried to straighten up despite the pain, took a couple of short breaths, then looked at Rey and nodded. _Let’s go_, he was telling her without a word. They had learnt to communicate even through silence, with a single glance or gesture.

The two started running again, the neighborhood drifting off in the distance in favor of the first buildings and shops from the city. It would have been easier to just hide in the crowd, among the streets filled with carriages and busy passers-by and the secondary alleys. With a little luck, people might have easily mistaken them for a normal couple that was wandering around, despite Ben’s shabby garments and her far too humble and consumed work clothes… but she didn’t care at all. She only wished to catch the last train to Tatooine, watch Coruscant’s rooftops get further and further behind and fade in the distance. They were going to buy two tickets at the station and, with the help of a newspaper, hiding their faces would have proved even easier.

_I really want to believe this will be easy_, Rey thought, a lump in her throat. At least they were out of the mansion, together: the rest would follow.

*

_Seeing Ben crouched on the ground made her heart almost jump out of her ribcage, but the young man had risen up as soon as she ran to his side._

_“I’m fine, don’t worry about me. You don’t have to get down here by-”_

_“Hush,” Rey silenced him, trying to hold him up to a sitting position. “We need to leave today, Ben. We’re going to wait for Hux to go sleep and then climb over the garden wall. It’s not too tall, we should make it. I won’t let you stay here.” The energy she put in that discourse took her breath away, for fear he could stop her, telling her it was all for naught and that he had no intention of following her. “We’ll make it. Trust me.”_

_To her enormous surprise and relief, Ben had simply nodded. Rey noticed a new bruise on the barely exposed shoulder, a violet stain he probably got as a result from last night’s clash, and the girl could feel a cold determination fill her veins._

_“Trust me,” she repeated, without even waiting for an answer. She had stood up and traced her way back in a fury, without bothering about anything, not even of checking if Hux was out of his room like he probably was, or so it seemed to her, just an hour before. She didn’t even notice that, while she walked back across the hall leading to her room, the study’s door had opened with a light click._

_*_

They reached their destination and Rey immediately headed to the ticket desk, ardently hoping there were still a few seats available on the last train leaving for Tatooine, for the evening ride. The city, lost in the prairies, was reached only by a small number of train rides, and the ticket seller could hardly believe the girl actually wanted to reach that place. Still, he detached the two tickets and Rey paid for them using one of the first salaries she earned.

_Luckily, I have this money with me,_ she thought to herself. _Luckily the station is always crowded. Luckily no one knows us here._ Their life had turned into a series of lucky chances grasped with teeth and claws, small miracles that might have just as easily not happened twice. She handed Ben his ticket, looking at it first and weighing it in her hand: the wonder of someone approaching something new for the first time.

The train was going to leave at seven in the evening. Rey was hungry, Ben surely hadn’t eaten in days, but entering one of the station restaurants for a warm meal was too risky: if someone was tracking them, escaping would have been far more difficult. They ended up buying a little bread and ate it sitting on the back edge of the biggest fountains in the building’s inner square, hidden away from prying eyes by two big green potted plants. They weren’t as majestic as Takodana’s trees, but they would have to make do.

*

_The chest touched the bottom of the suitcase with a soft thud. She covered it with her shawl and nightgown, then with the two novels she had purchased. Then she frantically dug through the wardrobe and inside the dressing table not to forget anything, but she had nothing else to carry away._

_Every time she entered the door, the girl usually locked it right away, but that morning she completely forgot to do so. Rey was used to the creaking sounds of the mansion, to the shadows spreading on the wallpaper, and was too busy filling her suitcase to pay attention to the sound of footsteps in the hall. She didn’t see Hux’s silhouette in the door frame, but the moment a gloved hand closed around her neck, forcefully turning her body around, she let out a frightened cry._

_“Did you really think you could run away like it was nothing, little girl?”_

_Her employer had clasped his fingers around her shoulders, violently pressing his thumbs against her skin. His eyes, usually controlled and almost bored, were so filled with anger it had passed to his features, twisting them: mouth bent in the grin of a beast finally able to capture its prey, flushed face, eyes wide open. Rey had never seen him in such rage before, and his expression made her feel a chill down her spine._

_She was so shocked she couldn’t even struggle. The man had misinterpreted that inertia as a sign of victory._

_“I’ve kept an eye on you, you know. You surely thought your adventures in the basement had gone unnoticed, but I knew everything.” She shook her like a puppet in his hands, not a human being. “I’ve followed you. Saw you walking downstairs and then up again, night after night, while you entertained yourself with the weapon. I could have caught you red handed countless times, and yet I’ve waited.” _

_He gritted his teeth, and Rey’s eyes had snapped shut in response. In a moment, she was once again the little girl covering her face while Unkar Plutt beat her with heavy and flabby hands, commanding her to shut up and obey. If she wasn’t even able to protect herself, how was she ever going to save Ben?_

"_Snoke wanted to use you as well. He thought you were the perfect subject: an orphan, alone in the world, with no one to look for you after your disappearance; our previous experiments followed exactly these characteristics, we took a lot of them in the orphanages from various cities. But you’re too rebellious, too brazen. You would be of no use to us. I should have disposed of you a long time ago.”_

_His nails pierced through her skin, making her quiver in pain. Rey had raised an arm to punch him, but the man had dodged her blow only to grab her hand in anger, twisting her wrist. She spat in his face, trying to push him away any way she could. It had worked only in part: Hux had let her wrist go to clean his face, but only to throw her to the ground shortly after, with even more vehemence than before._

_Rey had crashed on the ground with a thud, stunned by the sudden turn. Hux had rubbed his eye with a sleeve, staring at her a second after and, much to the horror of the girl, looked perfectly controlled. He was smiling._

_“I should have disposed of you a long time ago, but I can always make up for what I didn’t do earlier.”_

_When he drew a knife out of his belt, Rey didn’t close her eyes. She didn’t cover her face trembling like a leaf, nor did she wait on the ground for a fatal blow, all curled up and scared: she stared at the blade shining in the sunlight for a moment, then rose to her feet, every muscle of her body commanding to defend herself. She clenched her fists to face him, ready to hit him any way she could… and just when the master attacked, blade so close to her stomach, the door had slammed against the wall and Ben had entered her field of vision._

_*_

“Are you tired?” Ben must have noticed her pensive expression, since he stopped dividing the bread into pieces just to look at her. 

Rey stared at the crumbs in her hand, wiping those violent memories from her mind. “Yes, a little,” she admitted, letting out a long sigh.

He didn’t add anything else. Ben kept still, almost inviting her to lean on him to rest, and Rey accepted by laying her head on his arm. With heavy eyelids, she felt relief run through her body from head to toe, gentle as a warm bath. Ben’s heart, not far from hers, beat gently at a regular rhythm. She felt the question birthing directly from her mind, coming out of her lips with complete naturalness.

“How did you understand what was going to happen?”

“I just knew it.” He caressed her hand, tracing the edge of her knuckles with a slender finger. “Somehow, I felt you needed me. You’d have managed, but I had no intention of letting you risk your life for me.”

She opened her eyes to observe his fingers move, then barely closed them again, fully enjoying the sense of protection his proximity inspired in her. The bond that seemed to be tying them since their first encounter was still strong, pushing one against the other without them even realizing. She only needed to hold Ben’s hand to feel his emotions, just as he probably must have felt her silent cry for help, a few hours before.

Rey was about to start a new life somewhere else and, once again – she thought to herself – not carrying anything with her… except Ben.

And surely, it was better that way.

*

_Hux and Ben had started to fight and even if, at first, the master had succeeded in counterattacking and immobilizing his opponent, soon the young man’s wide frame and his strength prevailed. They both fell to the ground, and during their harsh fight, Hux’s hand had stretched out to hit him repeatedly in his stomach, before Rey could notice it and try to disarm him any way she could. She had succeeded, but Hux didn’t stop hitting Ben with punches and scratches on his head and shoulders, then he wrapped his hands around his neck to suffocate him._

S_he could barely remember the moment Ben hardly managed to stand up again, hurt and dizzy, but somehow, he had thrown a punch to the nape of Rey’s now former employer, because Armitage Hux had collapsed to the ground, unconscious. After all, there was no time to think: they had fled as fast as they could before he could recover his senses, running downstairs as desperately as two hunted wild animals, hoping not to run into any of the other servants, let alone Snoke._

_The air of that winter afternoon was clear, cold and shiny as a crystal. As soon as they walked through Brendol Hall’s doorstep, Rey had held his hand, as if she feared losing him._

_*_

“Stay still, or the wound could open again.”

“I’m more than still.”

“I wouldn’t say so, since you’re playing with water.”

Rey enjoyed scolding him, but she was never too serious while doing so. She loved watching him raise an eyebrow in the imitation of a frowning expression, while he lifted his right hand from the water and let her check the wound on his side. Luckily enough, Hux had thrown him a glancing blow: had he hesitated a second longer, tending to Ben’s wounds without any stitches would have been way more difficult. SheThe girl pressed a damp cloth on Ben’s skin, careful not to scratch away the scab that was just beginning to coagulate. Once in Tatooine, she would recover the address from her chest and together they would look for General Kenobi. She had no idea where his house was, nor how long it would take to reach it, yet she felt that, once they got away from Coruscant and its oppressive atmosphere, everything was going to be easier. That sense of freedom spreading across her stomach was telling her so, that mix of anticipation and anxiety biting her bones and filling her heart, making the girl count down the minutes remaining before the train’s departure. Everything would have been fine. It had to be fine.

She looked at Ben, sitting beside her, and thought that he was stronger than he knew, just like herself. They had started digging together in their shared loneliness and would have kept doing so in the same way, united by that invisible yet strong connection. Rey would have done everything to see him smile again like that, while he was simply letting water drops run through his fingers, with the innocence of the child still living inside him.

He deserved a second chance.

Ben didn’t ask about Tatooine: he trusted her plans, the same way he had trusted every decision she had made for him, until that moment. That was the first place that came to her mind, the first her instincts had suggested, and she thought following her guts once again was only fair. Any city was good as the other but, if anything, they could have asked for help to the only person she trusted, except Ben.

“Thank you, Rey,” he said, covering the fresh bandage with his shirt, and the kindness of those syllables almost made tears start running down her face. She offered him the most beautiful smile she had and gazed into the distance, to the horizon, where trains started to fade through the countryside and a new world was unfolding before their eyes.

She wondered what it had in store for them, what kind of destiny awaited two outcasts like them, with broken bones and hearts full of hope. Maybe she would have found General Kenobi sitting by the door, looking up at the sky, as he always did on summer evenings in Jakku, when the sun stopped scorching the land and set resembling a giant scarlet circle.

She smiled again, this time to herself: he had always liked sunsets.

**Author's Note:**

> This story's born thanks to the efforts and the talent of three wonderful people: my bae Ailisea, who translated the entire piece from Italian and gave me all the love and help I could have wished for, and mods Alexandra and Viv, with their patient, lovely editing work. Reylo family is one of the best things Star Wars gave me: I'm so grateful to be part of it.  
As you probably notice, Gothic novels are my soft spot: I read many of them in the past, I still read them, and writing a Reylo with a Gothic vibe was a dream came true. I hope you enjoyed this piece as much as I liked writing it :)


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